2014 Newly Elected Members

New York, NY, March 20, 2014 – The American Academy of Arts and Letters will hold its annual induction and award ceremony in mid-May. Secretary of the Academy, Billie Tsien will induct nine new members into the 250-person organization: Robert Adams, Ann Hamilton, Bill Jensen, Wendell Berry, Ha Jin, Denis Johnson, Tobias Wolff, David Lang, and Alvin Singleton. President Henry N. Cobb will induct honorary members Alice Waters, Thomas Adès, John Banville, Toyo Ito, Leon Kossoff, Magnus Lindberg, Haruki Murakami, and Colm Tóibín. Elaine Scarry will deliver the Blashfield Foundation Address, titled “Beauty and the Pact of Aliveness.” An exhibition of art, architecture, books, and manuscripts by new members and recipients of awards will be on view in the Academy’s galleries from May 22 to June 15.

The American Academy of Arts and Letters was established in 1898 to “foster, assist, and sustain an interest in literature, music, and the fine arts,” and is chartered by Congress. Founding members include William Merritt Chase, Kenyon Cox, Daniel Chester French, Childe Hassam, Henry James, Theodore Roosevelt, Elihu Vedder, and Woodrow Wilson. Each year, the Academy gives approximately one million dollars in awards to artists, architects, writers, and composers. It presents exhibitions of art, architecture, and manuscripts, and subsidizes readings and performances of new musicals. The 116-year-old organization is located in three landmark buildings, designed by McKim, Mead & White, Cass Gilbert, and Charles Pratt Huntington, on Audubon Terrace at 155 Street and Broadway.